Hayden and Taylor Sievers of Sievers Blumen Farm in the Brussels, Illinois area share how their farm has evolved from a cut-flower business into a growing grazing-focused cattle operation, alongside grain and hogs, while keeping an eye on family, profitability, and building a system that works on limited acres.
In This Episode, We Explore:
- How Sievers Blumen Farm got its name and the cut-flower beginnings behind the brand
- Farming in Calhoun County between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, and what that landscape means for grazing
- Converting a heavily tilled, flood-prone 80 acres into pasture over time while still cash cropping part of it
- Challenges of establishing pasture on heavy “black stick” clay and lessons learned with broadcast seeding and needing timely rain
- Using wheat followed by cover crops and pasture as a transition plan away from cash cropping
- Infrastructure choices including high-tensile perimeter fence, step-ins, reels, and thoughts on central alley layouts
- Moving from Dexters to South Pole-influenced cattle and what they noticed with fly pressure, forage efficiency, and easy-keeping traits
- Using cow-calf as a base herd while considering stockers and sell-buy marketing to capture excess forage
- Takeaways from stockmanship training, including receiving calves and getting them grazing quickly by focusing on mental and emotional state
- Raising meat chickens (including Red Rangers) and layers, plus building and using a chickshaw-style coop
- Taylor’s path into indie publishing, what she writes, and the discipline of finishing books while raising a family
Why This Episode Matters
If you are trying to make grazing work on limited acres or on land that is less-than-ideal, this conversation is a practical look at how a young family is building infrastructure, improving soil over time, selecting cattle that fit their system, and staying focused on profitability and quality of life instead of chasing too many enterprises at once.
Resources Mentioned
- Joel Salatin (Joe Rogan Podcast)
- Greg Judy (grazing and fencing approach)
- Jim Elizondo and total grazing concepts
- Hand ’n Hand sell-buy marketing class (Tina and Richard)
- Stockman Grass Farmer
- Working Cows podcast
- Ranching Returns podcast (formerly Herd Quitter podcast)
- Bud Williams stockmanship (referenced through stockmanship training)
- Dirt to Soil
- Braiding Sweetgrass
- For the Love of Soil
- The Creative Penn podcast (Joanna Penn)
- Wish I’d Known Then podcast
- The Two Authors podcast
- Justin Rhodes Chickshaw (mobile coop design)
- O’Brien step-in posts
- Taragate reels
- Meyer Hatchery
- McMurray Hatchery
- August Horstmann's Ranch (Missouri)
Find Out More
Here is a discount code for our farm shop (https://sieversblumenfarm.com/shop) that listeners can use for 10% off. The code expires in July. GRAZINGGRASS26
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Original Music by Louis Palfrey
